Machine-Gunning with Bruce Willis

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IGN visits the set of the comic-book adaptation Red.

By Scott Collura

It's hard to interview movie stars while machine guns are firing a few yards away. You're sitting there talking to Bruce Willis and then all of a sudden -- RAT-A-TAT-RAT-A-TAT-RAT-A-TAT! Only a lot louder than that description makes it seem. Yes, it's just another day, another set visit...

IGN Movies flew down to New Orleans last month to check out the set of Red, Summit Entertainment's adaptation of the DC Comics miniseries by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. The film stars Bruce Willis as Frank Moses, a retired spy who is drawn back into the business of killing when he realizes that he has become a marked man. Forced to go on the run to save not just himself but also the woman he cares for (Mary-Louise Parker), Moses reaches out to his old teammates -- John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren -- to get to the bottom of who wants him dead.

On the sunburn-inducing day that we were on set, Willis, Parker, Malkovich, and Karl Urban (whose character represents the next generation of secret agent) were all present and subjugated to interviews by the assembled press. We also got the chance to talk to Hamner, who was the artist on the original comic, producer Mark Vahradian, the stunt coordinator, production designer, and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. We'll feature those other interviews in a future report, but today it's di Bonaventura -- who's also got pictures like Transformers and G.I. Joe under his belt -- who we're focusing on.

"It's really an interesting project to work on," said the producer, "because at first you think, 'O.K., Frank's a real interesting character but he's a bit disaffected … a very almost interior guy.' So how do you take that interior guy and turn him into this kind of romp. It's an old-fashioned word -- 'romp,' but it feels more and more like that."

RAT-A-TAT-RAT-A-TAT-RAT-A-TAT! More machine gun fire. Press junkets in fancy hotel rooms are far more pleasant than this. This writer can feel the back of his neck turning red from the Louisiana sun as di Bonaventura talks. Fortunately, he's an interesting guy… and we know craft services is preparing what will no doubt be a tasty lunch for everyone.

"It reminds me of the first Ocean's Eleven," he continues. "When we put it together, you wrote a nice high script and then George [Clooney] commits and then so and so commits and then so and so commits and it just becomes a different animal. And this one did that. It started with Bruce obviously, and I think Morgan was in second and then Helen Mirren and then people start hearing that all these actors are jumping in. So then we started getting incoming calls. Usually you're out there trying to shake the trees and get them, beg them in any way or form to read your script and come onboard. And this time it was the exact opposite."